Any Java update is a teeth clenching affair for me. Enterprise needs it for many many things. Everything just got stable. I almost don't care about security patches as much as general compatibility. How sad is that? "I don't care if you gain root on my Mac's just don't jack up my Cisco deployment module". Of course I am kidding..soft of.

I love all the "java is useless" crap spewn everywhere. I think most science programs and enterprise systems would beg to differ -- there's elements of java everywhere. Sure, it's not the most resource efficient beast, but you can't beat cross platform...

I had to install Java on my wife's ML-based Mac. After installing J7v7, supposedly the 'secure' new version, it refused to launch without SE6. Downloading that failed because it was unavailable (I later managed to find a version for Lion on Apple's site, but in the meantime managed an expletive-filled tirade against Java).

Even after all that, the site she wanted to access didn't work properly (worked fine on SL, before I upgraded her computer to ML).

It may be useful, essential even in some cases, but that doesn't mean it's not a PITA.

I love all the "java is useless" crap spewn everywhere. I think most science programs and enterprise systems would beg to differ -- there's elements of java everywhere. Sure, it's not the most resource efficient beast, but you can't beat cross platform...

This. For whatever reason, people who don't use or utilize Java in some fashion feel it is important to jump in on these threads and shout about how useless something they know nothing about is.

If people would instead get on and discuss "do I need it?" or "gosh, sure has security problems", might be far more valuable discourse.

There's a good deal of ambiguity on that point. Apple does have an official policy in place explaining how long they will provide repair services on obsolete hardware, but they don't have anything similar explaining how long they will provide security and stability fixes for older versions of their software.

All we have to go on is an analysis of their past practices, and an assumption that they will continue to mimic those practices in the future. Extrapolating purely on that basis, it would have been reasonable to assume that all support for 10.6 should have been discontinued on the release day of 10.8.

But that's all it was: an assumption. We really don't have any official word to confirm it, so at this point it's all really just a guessing game.

Java like Flash or any other development technology has it's proper places and uses. They all have their pros/cons. Do I want all apps I run to be Java? Absolutly not. But are there scenarios where it is the appropriate choice? Absolutly. Many System Admins, remote workers, etc... depend on Java and do so without issue. We don't want Jave used for everything, just like we don't want Objective C used for everything, or Flash, or AppleScript, or .Net, or any other technology. You use the best tool for the job and Java quite often does in fact fit that.

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Hi just came back from a 5 weeks holiday and I cannot copy any more music from you tube to keepvid someone said I have to update java in order for me to do this again there is no update button for java I update software and it too 6 hours then there was a short drop out in internet connection and it appears some applications were not updated damn.I have the imac Mac OS X 10.7.